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History of the Steiner Tractor Parts Catalog
Our catalog today boasts over 4,500 products presented in a catalog of 480 pages that is professionally designed and printed. We have one full time staff member whose focus is the catalog as well as several people assisting with photographs and layout on a part time basis. Dan Steiner and Jr. Roberts spend hours painstakingly scouring the catalog for mistakes, corrections and areas for improvement. They have been adding many OEM numbers to the 2010 book as well as their usual improvements on tractor application information. At the same time, Jenny Steiner spends the majority of her year steadily adding new parts while keeping tabs on all of the newest parts in development still yet to be added to our next catalog. However, this isn’t how our catalog started out.
The first tractor parts catalog that Dave and Sue Steiner developed was a printout made on the word processor at home in 1985. It was 5 pages long. There were 8 Allis Chalmers parts, 4 John Deere parts, 26 Farmall parts, 5 Ford parts, 1 Case part, 3 Massey Harris parts, 3 Massey Ferguson parts, and 12 parts that were in development. Including Development parts, that is 62 parts total!! We have already added an additional 300 parts this year alone!
Dave and Sue saw success from their printout and they continued growing. In 1988, they made a professionally printed 28 page catalog complete with several pictures of the products. The 1989 catalog featured color on the cover and 31 pages of parts. Currently, our slogan is, “New Parts for Old Tractors”, however in the 1980’s our slogan was, “New Replacement Tractor Parts, Used Tractors & Parts and New & Used 3 Point Implements”. We shifted our focus to high restoration quality parts for antique tractors so we altered our slogan to fit the new business model.
The catalog in 1990 was up to 48 pages of high quality new replacement tractor parts. Another 20 pages of parts were added by 1992. By 1995 the tractor parts catalog grew to 80 pages and the growth of our customer base forced us to include a postcard in the catalog to make sure we didn’t have customers duplicated on the mailing list! In 1997, full color pictures of many of the products appeared on the front and rear covers and 92 pages inside including order forms for ease of ordering. By 2000, we shortened the slogan to, “New Replacement Tractor Parts” and were up to 164 pages of restoration quality tractor parts. The 2000 catalog also boasted the first advertisement for our online catalog at: www.steinertractor.com. In 2001 with our 208 page catalog we unveiled our new “chrome” style logo. In 2003 we changed the slogan to, “New Reproduction Tractor Parts”. The 2005 catalog was the first to use the newest slogan, “New Parts for Old Tractors”.
Just as changes have come through the past, we made a big change in the 2010 catalog. This was the first year that we included brand specific information pages with color pictures of several tractors. We hope everyone will enjoy this new feature, please order one now or even easier, visit our downloadable catalog online.
We have already started working on the 2011 catalog. We’ll make announcements regarding enhancements and improvements to our 'free' tractor parts catalog on this page of our website beginning in the summer of 2010. In the meantime, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to email us or phone us at (800) 234-3280. The most important aspect of our business isn’t our catalog of new parts for old tractors, but the customers that buy them. We appreciate you and hope to do business with you soon! |